


Hannibal and the orphic principle

by AlecdeNocturna



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology, Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Episode: s03e02 Primavera, M/M, Metafiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-09
Packaged: 2018-11-29 20:39:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11448648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlecdeNocturna/pseuds/AlecdeNocturna
Summary: With this little piece, I want to explore the Orphic symbols in NBC's Hannibal.





	Hannibal and the orphic principle

**Author's Note:**

> This little piece sat for two years on my hard drive, until I could convince myself, that I should make an account here on this site and post it already, even if I am terrified about posting anything I write. All of my stuff feels like my own children to me. So please be gentle. And if I could get even one of the readers to think about my words and the theories behind them, I will be eternally happy.  
> PS: English is not my first language and I would be grateful for all corrections or feedback.

Since the beginning of the show, there is this little notion in the fandom, that the bond between Hannibal Lecter und Will Graham is like the relationship of the Greek gods Hades and Persephone.

In the promotion pictures for the first season and in pictures of the full cast, we saw a pomegranate, the forbidden fruit in the Persephone Mythos.  
In the Mythos, Persephone, the daughter of Demeter, the harvest goddess, is abducted by Hades, the god of the underworld. Mostly, this mythos is referred to as „The Rape of Persephone". Demeter searched for her daughter and because she couldn't find her, she let the earth grow barren and all life withered away. Zeus, Persephone's father, Demeter's brother and the king of gods, ordered Hades to let Persephone go back to her mother, that the plants would grow again. But before she traveled back, Persephone got tricked into eating some (six to be exact) pomegranate seeds, so that she had to come back into the realm of the dead, because no one can part from that realm for a long time, if they have eaten the food or drink of the underworld. Because of that, Persephone lives six months above ground with her mother and six below in the underworld with her husband. The pomegranate is seen in ancient Greece as the fruit of the dead, but also the fruit symbolizing eternity or eternal life, because of its many seeds.

In the TV Show, the symbol of the pomegranate in the context of a parallelization of the relationship between Will and Hannibal and Persephone and Hades is very clear. The pomegranate stands on one hand for the forbidden fruit of the Christian paradise, on the other hand for the forbidden food of human flesh, which is consumed by Hannibal himself and which is served to Will as well.

Will eats the human flesh and therefore is in a way bound to Hannibal, like Persephone is bound to Hades. So we could say, by eating the human flesh, Will is bound to the darker realm of the human condition.  
He experiences the mind of the murderer and the flesh of the victim, he knows of the murderous intent of Hannibal and partakes in his „Design" up to a certain degree. In the end, Will decides against Hannibal and goes back into the „light" of the living world, instead of staying in the dark underworld of murder.

The first two seasons could be seen as a portrayal of the Eleusinian mysteries, a cult for Persephone and her mother Demeter. In these mysteries, the initiates go on a descent, a search and an ascent. Maybe into their own psyche, symbolized through caves, rooms or buildings. I think Will's journey from season one to the end of season two can be seen as something similar. 

 

Now in the third season, we see a grown Will. He thinks, he overcame Hannibal and his „Design" but lost Abigail in the way of doing so.  
Abigail, the daughter figure, was killed by Hannibal at the end of the second season, as a punishment for Wills betrayal. Now in the second episode of the third season „Primavera", we see Will conversing with Abigail, or better with Abigail's ghost, conjured up by Will's psyche. And now I think, we see the Orphic side of the mysteries. 

 

The story of Orpheus and Eurydice tells about a well known and famous singer Orpheus and his wife Eurydice. One day, Eurydice gets chased by an unwanted stalker and she steps on a snake. That snake bites her ankle and she dies. Orpheus loves her so much, that he can't live without her. He sees only one way to reunite with his wife and that is, to go into the Underworld and bring her back home because it wasn't her time yet. In the underworld, Orpheus plays before the king Hades and his queen Persephone and he moves them with his music. They grant him, that he can take Eurydice's shade with the soul-guide Hermes back to the world of the living. There is only one condition: He has to go on the way up to the world of the living without looking back at his love.  
There are different versions of why and when he broke that one command: One tale tells, that both of them had to reach the upper world and he was too impatient to wait, for when he reached the ground above, he looked back and forgot, that both of them had to stay on the ground of the world of the living.  
In another version, he didn't hear her steps anymore and therefore turned around. Some say, he missed her so much and was general impatient, that he turned halfway. Be it as it may, in all stories Eurydice had to go back to the world of the dead and Orpheus had to return to the world of the living alone. 

 

In the episode, Will sees Abigail and talks to her. Later we discover, that she is only a figment of his imagination and that she didn't survive Hannibal's attack at the end of the second season.  
One could say, that Abigail is like Eurydice. Will, as Orpheus, wants to bring her back to life, he talks to her, he is on Hannibal's trail for her and „her" version of a little family.  
In my opinion, Hannibal stands in this scenario for Death himself. He is not the stalker of Eurydice, who drove her to her death. He could be again Hades, the god of the Underworld, who guards the spirits of the dead and who is in his own way a personification of death himself. 

Will has to let go of Abigail's ghost, something he does in this episode. Interestingly this scene takes place in the Cappella Palatina, a church in Palermo. This church is built in a Byzantine style and decorated with Byzantine mosaics. I think they have chosen this church, because of its ties to the Greek world. The place, where Will acknowledges Abigail's death, is a floor mosaic of a skeleton, the painted representation of death. The symbol of death is grounded on the floor and ties to the chthonic roots of the realm of the dead underground.

 

After that, he follows Hannibal's trail into the catacombs under the church. Will opens some heavy wooden doors, which lead into the maze-like catacombs. Here one could draw parallels to the Orphic mysteries, where the initiated had to undergo rituals of self-exploration, of searches through their own underworld.  
I see Will here as the „hero" Orpheus, who goes back into the underworld, not because he wants a second chance with Eurydice, but because he now knows, that a little bit of the underworld and the death is also in him. 

In the episode, there is a police officer, who also hunts Hannibal. He follows Will into the catacombs, but he is frightened and in the scenes is mostly shown in lighted rooms.  
Will, on the other hand, wants to talk him out of the hunt and he walks the twisting ways of the catacombs with confidence. In one particular scene, he talks about his plans for Hannibal and seemingly melts into the shadows of the catacombs.  
I think, especially in this scene, the viewer sees an Orphic Will, who accepted the darkness in himself as a kind of self-awareness. He has gone through a crucible of initiation rites.  
Orpheus goes back to the underworld, not because he wants revenge for the second death of his wife, but because he forgives Death for that, what he took from him.  
The initiate has realized, that he is not the victim of Death, but rather that his experience with the darkness in himself changed him and that death is a constant of life.


End file.
